English

Name: English
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Wang Gang
ISBN: 9781101043981

Author: Wang Gang, Martin Merz, Jane Weizhen Pan

Narrator: Michael Sun Lee

Unabridged: 10 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 04/02/2009

Categories: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Cultural Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

"I loved this book and can't stop talking about it. . . . Transcendent." —Carolyn See, The Washington Post

In the tradition of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Wang Gang's English is a captivating coming-of-age novel about the power of language to launch a journey of self-discovery. When a new teacher—a tall, elegantly dressed man from Shanghai carrying an English dictionary under his arm—comes to Urumqi, the capital of China's far west region of Xinjiang, twelve-year-old Love Liu turns away from Chairman Mao's little red book and toward the teacher's big blue book for answers to his most pressing questions about love and life. But as a whole new world begins to open up for him, Love Liu must face a test more challenging than any he'll take in the classroom.

About The Author

Wang Gang based English on his experiences growing up in the Xinjiang region in China's far west. He now lives in Beijing and is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels as well as the screenplays for two enormously popular Chinese films. English is his first novel to be translated into English, and rights have been sold around the world.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Repellent on April 01, 2022

En "El profesor de inglés" nos encontramos como protagonista a Amor Liu, un niño de 12 años que vive en la China de los duros años de la Revolución Cultural. En esta edad de crecimiento y desarrollo, donde cualquier cosa despierta la curiosidad de los niños, Liu empieza a experimentar los cambios de......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on May 30, 2010

I would like to rate this coming-of-age novel more highly. The complex political world of the 1970s in the far western Chinese city of Urumchi is described here through the eyes of a young man who cannot quite understand the terrible, often cruel forces that swirl about him. For this young man, the......more

Goodreads review by Xavier on May 26, 2015

I was looking in the library for a good book, when this one caught my eye. On the back it mentioned how it was one of the top bestselling novels in China, so I knew it must be good. I didn't know what to expect, knowing absolutely nothing about the book, but I quickly learned it takes place in a part......more

Quotes

One of The Wall Street Journal's Two Best Works of Fiction of the Year about Asia

"Refreshing . . . Anyone who has dreamed for something bigger in life will relate to the story." —Lijia Zhang, The Wall Street Journal Asia

"Equally tender and searing . . . More than any other book I've read about Communist China, English conveys a sense of the time and place with clarity, authenticity and compassion." —Tiffany Lee-Youngren, The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Deftly explores the politics of language during those treacherous times." —Travel + Leisure

"Its story-telling and its narrative are both straightforward and clear . . . allow[ing] the drama of the story to open up naturally, unpretentiously . . . and yet also to crescendo into a tour de force of a conclusion. . . . [The translators'] English—and their English—is as fluid and conversational as Wang Gang's Chinese." —Rain Taxi

"A fascinating and loving portrait of a painful childhood full of fond memories [that] allows us to glimpse the humanity we all have in common. For that reason, the book does what good literature should always do." —The Quarterly Conversation

"A heart-wrenching coming-of-age story during one of the most tumultuous periods of modern history." —BookDragon

"A 'Catcher in the Rye in China.' . . . This book's style reminded me of Waiting, the 1999 National Book Award-winning novel by Ha Jin. . . . I truly enjoyed this book." —Minnesota Reads

"This compelling coming-of-age novel . . . paints a vivid picture of what life was like during the Cultural Revolution, with paranoia, suspicion, and distrust informing every relationship, even the closest ones."
—Booklist

"The pure friendship between the teenage boy and his English teachers is movingly beautiful; the depiction of the intellectuals of that particular period cuts to the bone. I highly recommend it."
—Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature